Motherhood: It's Not Just About the Biological Clock Anymore
Abstract
Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association this month's cover Motherhood: It's Not Just About the Biological Clock Anymore C hild-rearing has become contested terrain for t1 contemporary women who work outside the home. Tavris (1998) writes, "Motherhood... is another country: If you haven't been there, you can't quite imagine it.... That's why childless women can delu- sionally believe that having children won't affect their lives..." and why they solicit advice from experts as soon as they return to the office or factory following a first maternity leave. By meeting workplace standards (which are almost the inverse of those upheld by grandmothers who proudly excelled in the domestic arena), North American women have unknowingly bought into a psychosocioeconomic myth that predicts that self-fulfillment and the realization of one's poten- tial are most successfully achieved outside of the tra- ditional female roles of wife and mother (Crittenden, 1999). Berkeley sociologist Hochschild (1997) has recently noticed that "even when the jobs of working parents are secure, pay a sufficient wage and provide family- friendly programs, many working parents are still reluctant to spend more time at home" (p. 12). For sev- eral years Hochschild observed employees at a Fortune 500